On December 1, 2021, DaBaby took to Instagram to post a series of stories. The stories chronicled his past two years and how difficult they had been.
The stories began with him talking about his father’s death. Just a month after he dropped his aforementioned debut album, he received the heartbreaking news of his dad’s passing.
His little brother was the one to inform him of the tragedy over the phone.
At the time, in his own words, he was “the hottest rapper in the world” but was spending his breakthrough year faking smiles.
Finally, he confessed to using his work to block out the grief his father’s death brought.
In the following story, he put up a list of achievements he had throughout 2019. He “ran laps” around his colleagues on his first year in the industry but revealed he was too numb to enjoy those achievements.
DaBaby put up a list of his accomplishments in 2019 that he said he was too numb to enjoy. (Photo: DaBaby/Instagram)
He held up and carried on. Then, in late 2019, he dropped Kirk, his second studio album and a tribute to his father.
Kirk did well, too. It made him the artist with the most entries (22) on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in 2019.
All these, however, did not fill the void of not knowing how his father passed away. He still doesn’t to this day.
DaBaby mentions how he still didn’t know what happened to his father that caused his death. (Photo: DaBaby/Instagram)
Then COVID hit, and everything stopped, including his sold-out arena tour.
However, DaBaby did not stay down for too long. April 17, 2020 — he released his third album, Blame It On Baby.
The downpour of grief wasn’t over yet for the artist, though. On November 3, 2020, DaBaby’s elder brother took his own life.
He was the top streaming artist in the world when this tragedy befell him.
In the subsequent story, he reiterated his numbness. “2 & a half years in the game I done accomplished [expletive] that [n-word] ain’t did who been in this [expletive] 10 years+,” DaBaby said. “whole time I can’t feel NONE of it.”
In conclusion, he wrote that he was still targeted for fame and money, two things everyone wanted that he did not care about.
DaBaby mentions not caring about money or fame. (Photo: DaBaby/Instagram)
